Today’s shot is another version of the beautiful Santa Maria Del Mar; the basilica by the sea in Barcelona. I went a little more extreme in the processing of this picture, but I think that it worked out quite well.

This photoshoot cost me a UV filter. I usually don’t shoot with unnecessary filters, but this time I thought prudent, and I am glad that I did. The UV filter is destroyed but my camera and lens is fine.

The Correfoc fire run in Barcelona is a crazy run trough the streets of Barcelona, in which people dress up as devils and demons, letting off fireworks and this massive spinning sparklers in every direction.

Spain has a healthy disregard of safety, so there are no barriers or crowd control at all. It’s up to you how far or close you stand, and up to you to get out of the way; or not as was the case for me.

I soon found myself with devils on the one side, and a healthy gap on the other, with crowds of thousands of people outside the danger-zone (literally there were over 100,000 people watching).

So what the heck, I started shooting, and I think I got some great pics out of it. After all it is not often that you find yourself in the middle of a fireworks festival, and it was something to experience, but beware, you need to wear jeans and a thick (and old) shirt. My shirt ended up with burn holes in it so it got trashed afterwards.